


ustumah

by kokiri



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Childhood Friends, Growing Up Together, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, Small Towns
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-26
Updated: 2017-02-26
Packaged: 2018-09-27 00:58:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9943154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kokiri/pseuds/kokiri
Summary: in which soonyoung is the comfort of home and a thousand painful farewells all at once - and wonwoo is still trying to figure out how that can possibly be.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aishiteita](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aishiteita/gifts).



> hey guess what. this is a fic for an exchange that was supposed to be finished in october. welcome to the first chapter. 
> 
> this is for my dearest sandra. the brightest star i have ever known in all my days, thank you for your endless and continued patience. for understanding me. for thinking the words i write are worth a shit. i love you, i love you. i hope this reaches you the way i want it to, with all of the love in the world.

Wonwoo made a mistake counting his change and was only able to buy one soda from the corner store, and two pieces of gum. He gave the gum to Jeonghan, because Jeonghan would whine if he was left out of anything. He told Soonyoung and Jeonghan to share the soda and crossed his arms with a sort of self-satisfied sense of martyrdom he had observed from his father over the years. The way his father would quietly make it known that he was going out of his way to do someone the smallest kindness. Jeonghan complained that he wasn’t a fan of chewing gum, he wanted the barley sugar lollipops, the ones that are shaped like animals. And to that Wonwoo said: “Too bad.”

It was the last day before summer vacation’s end and the boys were trying their hardest to salvage some sort of optimism out of it. Their parents talked amongst themselves about Joshua’s waning health, the inexplicable stomach problems and night terrors and whatnot, and all quietly concluded that he would likely not be attending school alongside everyone else. Had Joshua been in better sorts, they would have certainly had enough money to buy two sodas to share and some barley lollipops for Jeonghan, but alas – he was not.

“So, what do we do?” Soonyoung asked. He was never much of a leader. Neither was Wonwoo. Jeonghan was probably the most apt at taking charge among the bunch, but there was something languid and pitiful about him with Joshua gone, so he mostly just skirted behind the two of them and let them do the talking.

“We can go to the train tracks. And throw rocks. Or we can go to the lake and skip rocks?”

“Why does everything we ever do have to be about throwing rocks?” Jeonghan asked. Wonwoo figured he had a point.

“We can go to the creek and look for crawdads or something?”

“Sure,” Soonyoung said.

“But my mom said we shouldn’t go down to the creek alone,” Jeonghan said.

“We’re not alone,” Wonwoo said. “We’re really not!” he insisted against Jeonghan’s skeptical look. “There’s three of us. We’re as safe as ever.”

“Sure,” Jeonghan said. “Well, fine. But if I get in trouble, I’m never talking to you ever again.”

“Fine with me,” Wonwoo said. He looked over his shoulder, as if Jeonghan’s mother was just lurking in the shadows and ready to pounce at any inclination of disobedience, and then he smacked Jeonghan on the back so hard the chewing gum flew right out of his mouth.

“God, Wonwoo!”

Soonyoung laughed and laughed – that’s why Wonwoo did these things, mostly. To make Soonyoung laugh. They crossed the street without waiting for the light to change because precious daylight was ticking away. They had a path carved out for themselves starting from just behind the library where the pavement dipped off into near-constant mud and the grass got so tall it made their knees itch. They’d spent most of their youth just following the sound of the cicadas and finding fun in whatever awaited, but lately they stuck to the same old worn path. And it was their path, because even if someone else might think to use it, they were certainly not using it with the same heart or intention as they were, in which case it hardly counted at all.

Wonwoo was no good at skipping rocks, but Soonyoung could get about six skips in with each stone most of the time, so Wonwoo preferred to sit back and watch. Jeonghan took off his shoes and waded a bit into the river despite his apprehension, remarked that it was a little colder than usual before his shoulders sank and Wonwoo could see any desire to play or have fun leaving his body.

Since Jeonghan was looking all pathetic, Wonwoo took off his shoes and joined him in the river. “What’s up with you?” he asked.

Jeonghan turned to look at Wonwoo, but could not maintain eye contact for too long. “Nothing,” he said, clearly lying, because Jeonghan was not known for one-word answers.

“You’re sad ‘cause Joshua isn’t here.”

“It’s not just that Joshua isn’t here, Wonwoo,” Soonyoung said thoughtfully. “It’s that Joshua’s not going to be at school, and my dad says Joshua’s never going to live a normal life, on account of his dad dying and giving him a nervous disposition.”

“That’s what it’s called? A nervous disposition?” Wonwoo asked.

“I don’t even know what that means,” Jeonghan said. “Just that Joshua gets these things called anxiety attacks where he can’t breathe. And the doctor said that Joshua doesn’t have the emotional capacity to deal with all the stimuli public school has to offer, at least for the time being. That’s what his mom told my mom that other night. I was listening on the phone in the kitchen. And that Joshua might have something called P-T-S-D, whatever that is.”

“Then I reckon you must be pretty sad, Jeonghan,” Wonwoo said.

“I’m not sad,” Jeonghan insisted, his cheeks all red because Wonwoo was right, and Jeonghan really hated it when anyone other than himself was right about anything.

“It’s no big deal,” Wonwoo said. “That you like Joshua.”

“Take it back!” Jeonghan whined, holding his hands over his face in embarrassment.

“No! I won’t take it back,” Wonwoo said. He probably should have, just because there was a time and a place to have conversations like this. But what did Wonwoo know? He was just a kid. “I won’t take it back because it’s true!”

That was when the light in Jeonghan’s eyes turned into a brief jolt of electricity. When the sadness and embarrassment turned to anger. When he put his hands on Wonwoo’s shoulders and shoved him as hard as he could.

“Shit!” Wonwoo gasped, splashing water all over the both of them as he stumbled backwards. He could see Jeonghan reaching for his hand just as quickly as he had pushed him, but it wasn’t fast enough. He felt for a brief second that he had regained his footing, but his ankle gave out and he fell with another big splash and a cry at the pain shooting through his leg.

“Wonwoo! I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” Jeonghan cried. His lower lip trembled as he crouched at Wonwoo’s side. “I’m so sorry, Wonwoo… Soonyoung, what do I do?” he asked, unable to quiet Wonwoo’s miserable sobs no matter how many apologies he fit into the span of a single second.

“Uhhh, uhm,” Soonyoung hmm’d nervously. “Go get Wonwoo’s mom,” he said.

“But I’ll get in trouble!”

“It doesn’t matter right now! You go get Wonwoo’s mom, and I’ll get Wonwoo out of the water, and I’ll say it was my idea to come down here. It’ll be okay. Alright?” When Jeonghan did not move, Soonyoung spoke with so much force that for some reason it made Wonwoo want to cry even harder. “Jeonghan, I mean it! Go!”

Jeonghan nodded, climbed to his feet, and gave Wonwoo one last look over his shoulder before he ran up the riverbank without another word.

Soonyoung took about ten seconds to himself, to catch his breath and analyze the situation. “Okay. Is it broken?”

“How am I supposed to know?” Wonwoo snapped. He was thirteen years old, freezing cold, and experiencing the worst pain of his entire life, how could Soonyoung expect him to be able to understand the properties of a broken bone?

“I’m going to pick you up.”

“You can’t!”

“Like hell I can’t!” Without even kicking his shoes off, Soonyoung waded through to river to where Wonwoo sat and crouched down. “Can you wrap your arms around me?” he asked.

“This isn’t going to work…” Wonwoo whined, almost too unhinged in that moment to care that he was letting Soonyoung see him in this state. He let out a pained sob, finally let go of his ankle, and wrapped his arms around Soonyoung’s waist the best that he could. Soonyoung shifted his weight forward and attempted to pull Wonwoo upwards, but they fell back into the water together.

“Shit…” Soonyoung muttered, standing and staring at Wonwoo in deep contemplation. “It’s fine. Here, try to stand.” He grabbed Wonwoo’s hand and pulled him to his feet, inviting him to rest against him as he stood one-legged and waited for further instruction. Soonyoung did not ask for Wonwoo’s permission to put one arm around him and scoop the other under his legs, successfully pulling him into a rather strong bridal-style pose – much to Wonwoo’s horrifying humiliation. Soonyoung took a few small steps forward, enough to at least get the two of them out of river, and then he stopped.

“What are you doing?” Wonwoo asked, lost somewhere being laughing and crying. “This is… embarrassing…” he added quietly, resting his head in the crook of Soonyoung’s neck.

“Yeah?” Soonyoung asked. “You weigh, like, nothing. You know.”

“Whatever,” Wonwoo said, scrunching up his nose. Soonyoung was careful with each step he took, whispered to Wonwoo that everything was going to be okay, even though Wonwoo had the feeling that he was saying all that stuff more for himself than for Wonwoo. He carried him along the side of the river until they could hear the muffled voices of Jeonghan and Wonwoo’s mother in the distance.

Soonyoung gently placed Wonwoo back on dry land and let his mother take over guiding Wonwoo’s hobbling frame up to where her car was parked haphazardly in front of the library.

Though Wonwoo did not have much time to think about it in the car ride to the hospital, he would later find himself having to try and reconcile why the moments he spent crying like a baby as Soonyoung carried him up the riverside with a disarming, nervous type of strength were more comfortable than the hospital bed where a nurse toweled off his hair and confidently told him what Soonyoung had repeated a million times between then and now – that everything would be okay.

 

 

Every now and again, Wonwoo would feel a sharp pain jolting through his ankle. It often happened when he found himself hitting the ground a little too hard running to catch up with Soonyoung - because nowadays, Soonyoung was always about ten yards ahead of Wonwoo. In retrospect, it seemed like it had been as such ever since the day Soonyoung had held still his own shaking heart to do what little he could for Wonwoo, terrified and sobbing with his broken ankle in the river.

"I just… really need you to slow down sometimes," Wonwoo said. Soonyoung would have absolutely none of that. He was already sticking his head out of the window of their usual seat in the back of the school bus and teasing Wonwoo for his usual sluggish pace. When Wonwoo joined him, he had that look in his eyes like he had been waiting to tell Wonwoo something all day. The bus lurched forward to take them home, and Soonyoung cleared his throat dramatically.

"Here's my life plan," he said. The bus hit a particularly steep bump, the same one that it always hit, and sent his elbow directly into Wonwoo's stomach. "Sorry! Anyway… I was inspired by that essay we had to write for English class today. About our goals. And I think I've got it all figured out. After graduating high school, I'm thinking… New York City? Then after New York City, I'm thinking somewhere cool like Japan… Then, I become fluent enough to study all of the traditional Japanese literature that will never be translated into English. That will probably take a hundred years, so I might skip New York City first. But either way, I gotta end up in New York City. I would like to win a Tony or become a revolutionary who beckons social change important enough to make it into the history books. Then I want to secure a job in Norway and live there for a while, just because once I read a really cool book about Norway and no one ever gets murdered there. What about you, Wonwoo?"

"Me?" Wonwoo asked dumbly. He rested his head against the window and breathed hard enough to fog up the glass. "I don't know. I was thinking I'd like to stay here."

"Huh?!" Soonyoung said incredulously.

"What's so wrong with that…"

"Well, I guess nothing. But don't you ever get that restless type of yearning? For something big?"

"Sure, sometimes, but mostly not," Wonwoo admitted. He didn't like the air between the two of them. The first time in his life he ever had to consider the idea that Soonyoung would not be by his side forever. There would be a day when they weren't taking the bus home from school, getting off three stops early so they could stop by the used book store and pick out a new book to share and scribble notes all over.

"Why?" Soonyoung asked, tilting his head.

"I don't know. My family. My… entire life. I like it here."

"Aren't you scared of ending up like Joshua? Sad and lonely with a nervous disposition?"

Now, Wonwoo didn't think that was exactly fair, and his face clearly showed this. Soonyoung's expression changed to something softer.

"I guess I shouldn't say that," he said.

"Joshua is Joshua because something bad happened to him when he was a kid that changed the chemistry of his brain. I'm Wonwoo because Wonwoo is just who I am, inherently, at my core. I don't think it's the same," Wonwoo said, with some hesitation. What did any of this even mean? They had a good three months before graduation and Wonwoo just wanted to think about video games and getting through final exams.

"You know," he said, as if it mattered, "Jeonghan says the same thing. That he never wants to leave."

"Then I guess that means… I'm going to be alone a lot?" Soonyoung said. No particular sadness in his voice, just a matter-of-factness that Wonwoo could not understand. Being alone was certainly the worst thing that could ever happen to a person.

Soonyoung stood up and slung his backpack over his shoulder. Wonwoo followed suit - this was their stop. Wonwoo didn't have the money for a book today, but he did have the money to get some barley pops for Jeonghan and a surprise for Joshua, who had not been to school for the last couple of days. The county was threatening to take his mother to court again due to excessive absences which they felt were unwarranted. She had been accused of being unwilling to allow Joshua to grow and heal from his childhood trauma.

"Munchausen syndrome by proxy," Soonyoung said.

"What?" Wonwoo asked.

"Munchausen syndrome by proxy. Where the person taking care of you is actually making you sick. You know, like if your mamaw loved you a lot, but she was also slipping poison into her cookies 'cause taking care of you gave her a sense of self-worth or something like that. That's what people think Joshua's mom is doing."

"That's fuckin' stupid," Wonwoo said.

"Isn't it weird," Soonyoung said, forehead pressed against the window of the corner store, eyeing the various treats that awaited them inside, "that people can do things like that out of love? That you can hurt someone forever, and never once have malicious intent?"

"I guess it's not so weird," Wonwoo said. He dug a couple of wrinkled dollar bills out of his pocket. "Since love makes you act all funny."

"It does make you act all funny," Soonyoung agreed.

Wonwoo opened the door of the shop and hummed along with the familiar jingling of the bell overhead. Soonyoung followed after him, linking their arms together and holding on so tight Wonwoo found it a bit difficult to walk.

"Like it's funny that Jeonghan is giving up a full ride to a fancy university, just 'cause he wants to stay here with Joshua," Soonyoung said.

Wonwoo pretended like he didn't hear. He grabbed a pack of barley lollipops and figured they would probably do for Joshua as well, so he grabbed another pack. Wonwoo didn't think there was anything funny about loving someone so much you knew right where you wanted to dig your roots. Soonyoung had a very peculiar idea of what was funny.

He was curious, though, and full of questions to which he probably would prefer to not know the answer. "You don't think you'll ever find someone important enough to settle down for?" he asked.

"Shouldn't I be important enough to make someone want to get up and go? To follow me?" Soonyoung responded carefully. He looked up at Wonwoo, lips pouted, and it was a difficult sight for Wonwoo to grasp. He did not, could not, answer Soonyoung.

The barley lollipops were three dollars and fifty cents. They had been two dollars when they were kids, and that made Wonwoo feel a little sullen and a lot empty. He shoved the treats into his backpack. They walked to Joshua's house hand in hand, the way they used to when they were kids. The way Soonyoung only initiated anymore when he was certain he had said something to upset Wonwoo's incredibly delicate sensibilities.

Jeonghan was already there - he was good at making up excuses to duck out of school early. He and Joshua sat together on the swing, taking turns picking at the chipped white paint. Wonwoo always imagined that when he was bigger, his house was going to have a big wrap-around veranda like Joshua's house. It was secretly his dream to buy this house should Joshua's mother ever pack up and leave the way she always talked about. Just so no one else would be able to have it. He would leave the porch swing and the wicker chairs just as they were. He probably wouldn't live there, except maybe in the summer when the air was muggy and the moths bounced around the porch lights. The four friends had spent many evenings of their summer vacations on that porch, up way too late, playing video games on their Gameboys while Joshua's mom squinted at her book from behind her out of date prescription and ate the ice out of the bottom of her empty tea glass. Wonwoo wanted to preserve that as much as humanly possible.

It was worth mentioning that Joshua had the same habit of eating the ice out of the bottom of his tea glass and could sip on watered down tea for hours before he got up for a refill. The reason it was worth mentioning was because it was something that made Joshua happy even if it made sense to no one else. But it made sense to Wonwoo. Joshua was pretty easy to please, despite what others may have thought, and Wonwoo loved that about him. He pulled the barley lollipops out of his backpack and tossed one pack on Joshua's lap, the other on Jeonghan's. Joshua smiled that vacant smile of his.

Wonwoo sat down, startled by the force with which Soonyoung pulled against him as he insisted on standing yet would not let go of Wonwoo's hand.

"What's up with you?" Wonwoo asked.

Soonyoung shrugged, let go of Wonwoo's hand as if touching it was literally causing him physical pain. He leaned against one of the pillars. Wonwoo’s dad always said those are the kind of pillars that let you know a house has good bones. And all you really need in this world is some land and a house with good bones. “Jeonghan,” he said.

Jeonghan lazily looked up from his phone. “Hmm?”

“What did you write about? In the essay?”

“Moving my parents back to Korea like they’ve always dreamed. And then I wrote some crummy paragraph about wanting to be a philanthropic entrepreneur.”

“As if. You just want to get rich quick and never work a day in your life,” Wonwoo said.

“Right!” Jeonghan said, shamelessly.

“What about you, Joshua?” Wonwoo asked, because he knew that Soonyoung wouldn’t.

“I… didn’t do it,” Joshua admitted sheepishly.

“But if you had,” Wonwoo urged gently. If no one else had any intent to ask Joshua what was going through his head every once in a while, then Wonwoo would have to be the one to do it.

“If I had…? I guess. I would have written about graduating college or something like that. To be honest, though… it’s hard to think that far ahead. I’m mostly thinking about tomorrow. Or this weekend. You know…”

“Then what do you want to do this weekend?”

“I want to go to Jeonghan’s choir recital,” Joshua said, no hesitation whatsoever. Jeonghan looked at him bashfully, then looked back at his phone, trying to act like he didn’t even care in the slightest.

“Then we’ll go,” Wonwoo said. He looked at Soonyoung. Soonyoung looked at him.

“We’ll go,” Soonyoung said. “It’ll be fun.”

Mrs. Hong opened the front door and rested languidly against the frame. “Guess what?” she said, smiling with the slightest hint of mischievousness about her. Wonwoo thought it made her look very young and very pretty.

“What?” the four of them answered in unison.

“There’s a burn pile calling your names.”

“A burn pile!” Soonyoung shouted excitedly, and he ran straight into the house without waiting for anyone else. The screen door leading out to the backyard slammed and Wonwoo knew Soonyoung was already hopping the fence to the empty plot of land behind the house. He didn’t care to wait for anyone else.

Mrs. Hong had wanted to burn the dry rotted wooden steps off the deck in the backyard for quite some time now, though it was often difficult for her to gather up the motivation to complete tasks such as that. The three remaining boys helped her carry cinder blocks, fallen tree branches and twigs, and old newspaper to the empty lot where Soonyoung was already hollowing out the remnants of a shallow pit from the last burn pile they had made.

Joshua placed the cinder blocks in a perfect square around the pit while Jeonghan tossed in the branches and waited for Mrs. Hong to toss the pieces of splintered and rotted pieces of wood into the pit. Then he took a piece of paper and curved it into a cone, and held it out for Mrs. Hong to light. He threw the burning paper into the pile, content with his workmanship.

Soonyoung sat on the ground, arms wrapped around his knees, and was content as a child to watch the flames forcing their way to the top of the pile. Where was the enjoyment in this, Wonwoo wondered? Why did it make the four of them so happy? He did not feel the need to question it anymore, so he sat down next to Soonyoung and thought now would be a good time to hold his hand.

Though their faces were obscured by the dancing flames, Joshua and Jeonghan sat down on the other side of the cinder block fort. The two of them were inseparable nowadays, it seemed an awful lot like that they would always be headed in the same direction. Wonwoo wanted that to know what that felt like, someone’s footsteps in perfect time with your own.

Was it just because it reminded them of being kids? Was that why burn piles stirred up some foreign sense of contentment in their guts? Wonwoo figured that had to be it. Joshua’s parents used to bring out marshmallow, chocolates, and graham crackers so the four boys could make s’mores over the flames. Joshua would laugh at Jeonghan’s joke in the same way he still did all those years later, but with a deeper sort of breathlessness. Like there was no end to the joy he could feel. And it seemed that it was different now – that there was some finite limit to the amount of joy his heart was capable of handling.

Wonwoo wiped the sweat from his brow. Now was a bad time to be overthinking everything. He needed to just enjoy it while he could. So he tried, and he tried, and tried – and he wondered if anyone else had to try so hard in those circumstances.


End file.
